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Friday, May 30, 2008

Update

Okay, since nobody posted any news from the Gitmo35 trial yesterday, here's something I blogged over at Pax about the guilty verdict...

ntodd

[Update on the update: all given suspended sentences today, 'cept for Ashley who got some probation for being a naughty girl previously. I suspect somebody at the house will provide deets later, after they finish partying. WHOOHOO!]

['nother update: more details and clarification on sentencing in the comments...]

Thirty-four members of the group, Witness Against Torture, were convicted Thursday in D.C. Superior Court of misdemeanor charges stemming from the Jan. 11 protest on the Supreme Court plaza. Twenty-three of the defendants were given one year's probation.

Four of the 11 who received jail time were initially given probation by Judge Wendell P. Gardner Jr., but the four said they wanted to be jailed instead. The jail terms ranged from one to 15 days.

All were fined $50 and prohibited from going near the Supreme Court for a year.

5 comments:

"Well, we have eight in the bag!" said She-Who-Defends-Us-All, Ann Wilcox.

Three got one day of actual jail, with 29 more days suspended, and will probably be out by morning.

One (Paula) got two days in jail plus probation etc.

Eve Tetaz got five days Inside for refusing to pay her fine. I feel so much safer knowing a 76 year old grandmother is locked up tonight. Like Hell I do.

Three got 10 days incarceration for refusing the terms of their probation, including one guy who first accepted, then refused his probation, because the people he was going ride back to Iowa with were going to be in jail for 10 days. Their legal advisor said that was a first time for that one.

One (I think Shannon) got 15 days.

I'm not sure what Paul Magno's final sentence was, because he kept getting arrested, then re-arrested, for contempt of court.

Everone else today got fines (mostly paid by Witness Against Torture) and probation for their history of "naughtyness". Appeals are in the process of being filed.

I hope somebody posts more complete info somewhere, and that there is good jail support for these folks, and that everybody goes home, and comes home, safely.

I'm sorry that I was unable to attend the trial. I was not arrested at the demonstration. I have tried some confined spaces, and they don't suit me well. On top of that, I am not a big baloney fan. I hope that all of the defendants feel that the protest was worth the effort, inconvenience, cost, etc. In my opinion, it was one of the most beautiful and photogenic actions that has been done in DC since the start of the war. It was a terrible shame that there was not more significant local and national coverage of the protest itself. When you think about how many times the media has printed pictures of the Bush War Criminals, and parroted their garbage about "the worst of the worst", it is nearly heartbreaking that they chose not to print the unique and beautiful images of the orange-clad protesters kneeling on the court steps. An important part of the message of the protest, including our (not-exactly-everyone's-cup-of-tea) torture simuation, is that every prisoner held by our government, in our name, is a human being, born of a mother's womb, and deserving, under any circumstances, of what we call human rights.Abraham Lincoln released General Order 100 in an effort to stem some of the atrocities of the Civil War, which, along with the Crimean War, was one of the first wars in which the powers of industrial technology were unleashed in pursuit of human carnage. I will offer two articles from this order here, that we may reflect upon where we have been, where we are, and where we would like to go.Here they are:

Art. 15. Military necessity admits of all direct destruction of life or limb of armed enemies, and of other persons whose destruction is incidentally unavoidable in the armed contests of the war; it allows of the capturing of every armed enemy, and every enemy of importance to the hostile government, or of peculiar danger to the captor; it allows of all destruction of property, and obstruction of the ways and channels of traffic, travel, or communication, and of all withholding of sustenance or means of life from the enemy; of the appropriation of whatever an enemy's country affords necessary for the subsistence and safety of the army, and of such deception as does not involve the breaking of good faith either positively pledged, regarding agreements entered into during the war, or supposed by the modern law of war to exist. Men who take up arms against one another in public war do not cease on this account to be moral beings, responsible to one another and to God.

Art. 16. Military necessity does not admit of cruelty - that is, the infliction of suffering for the sake of suffering or for revenge, nor of maiming or wounding except in fight, nor of torture to extort confessions. It does not admit of the use of poison in any way, nor of the wanton devastation of a district. It admits of deception, but disclaims acts of perfidy; and, in general, military necessity does not include any act of hostility which makes the return to peace unnecessarily difficult.

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